Ongoing Events in China

[Approaching Infinity]

Report from the World Bank:

Lifting 800 Million People Out of Poverty – New Report Looks at Lessons from China’s Experience

Over the past 40 years, China has lifted nearly 800 million people out of poverty, accounting for more than 75 percent of global poverty reduction in the same period, according to a new report released on Thursday.

www.worldbank.org

Meanwhile in the West the number of people falling below the poverty line is rising, and life expectancy - and this is prior to the lockdowns - for the poorest has stalled or is falling:

More than 4m in UK are trapped in deep poverty, study finds

More than 4 million people in the UK are trapped in deep poverty, meaning their income is at least 50% below the official breadline, locking them into a weekly struggle to afford the most basic living essentials, an independent study has shown....

www.sott.net

A while ago I tried to get some data on relative poverty rates for various countries, but from my limited searches at the time it wasn't easy to draw any obvious and intuitive comparisons between various countries based on the basic figures provided by governments or the World Bank. Here's a description of the World Bank's metrics, which attempt to determine an absolute measure applicable to all countries. But there are problems with that, because the real poverty rate will be higher in countries with a higher cost of living, for example. And European countries use their own relative poverty rates, making it hard to compare to non-EU and OECD countries. First couple paragraphs of that article:

Is poverty absolute or relative? When we think of (one-dimensional) income poverty, should we define the threshold that separates the poor from the non-poor as the cost of purchasing a fixed basket of goods and services that allows people to meet their basic needs? Or should we instead think of it as relative deprivation: as earning or consuming less than some given proportion of the country’s average living standard?

This is an old debate, and international institutions have made different choices. Whereas the European Union (through Eurostat) and the OECD typically rely on relative poverty lines – set at 50% or 60% of national median incomes – the World Bank has traditionally used an absolute poverty line, currently set at $1.90 per person per day, in 2011 PPP dollars. The World Bank’s motivation was to measure poverty across countries in a welfare-consistent way: We wanted the International Poverty Line (IPL) to correspond, as far as possible, to the same level of welfare, regardless of the country the individual lived in. PPP exchange rates were used to try to account for differences in the cost of living across countries, and the intention was that a line thus adjusted would capture the same levels of well-being, in a way that using half the median income in, say, Madagascar and the Czech Republic, never could. The specific value of the international poverty line was, by design, anchored on the poverty thresholds used by some of the world’s poorest countries (see Ravallion, Datt and van de Walle).

Looking around I found this interesting paper published earlier this year in the Chinese Journal of Sociology comparing relative poverty in Germany, the UK, the US and China. First some interesting excerpts on the decline in absolute poverty in China, then their concluding remarks:

Absolute poverty in China​

Scholars, government agencies and international organisations have used different poverty lines in their research. So, there is a range of estimates of the level of poverty in China (see e.g., Li et al., 2013: 74, Table 2.16). But all studies point to a large decline over the past 40 years, irrespective of which poverty line is used (Ravallion and Chen, 2007; Zhang et al., 2014).

Appleton et al. (2010) argue that the main driver of poverty reduction in China is economic growth, not redistribution or anti-poverty programmes. And since absolute poverty in China is “predominantly a rural phenomenon” (Gustafsson and Zhong, 2000: 984), it was “[g]rowth in the primary sector (primarily agriculture) [that] did more to reduce poverty” (Ravallion and Chen, 2007: 2). The critical policy change that spurred rural growth in the 1980s was the decollectivisation of agriculture and the return to family farming (Oi, 1989).

It is well-known that income inequality in China has risen very sharply since the mid-1980s (Chan et al., 2019; Xie and Zhou, 2014). It might be thought that a higher level of inequality is the necessary price to pay for the economic growth that is needed to reduce poverty. But there is no evidence for this. As Ravallion and Chen (2007: 3) observe, “[t]he periods of more rapid growth did not bring more rapid increase in inequality. Nor did provinces with more rapid rural income growth experience a steeper increase in inequality. Thus, provinces that saw a more rapid rise in inequality saw less progress against poverty, not more”.

The progress in poverty reduction was uneven, with “[h]alf of the decline in the number of poor came in the first half of the 1980s” (Ravallion and Chen, 2007: 2). After the mid-1980s, the poverty headcount continued to fall, but there were reverses and the rate of decline slowed down considerably. Spatially speaking, there is more poverty in Western China than in the central provinces which, in turn, are poorer than the provinces on the Eastern coast (Gustafsson and Sai, 2009). Li et al. (2013: 76) observe that “by all measures, China's poor is heavily concentrated in the West”.

Of even greater importance than the regional difference is the urban–rural divide. Ravallion and Chen (2007: 8) show that “[f]or all years and all measures, rural poverty incidence exceeds urban poverty and by a wide margin”. Similarly, Li et al. (2013: 75) report that “using absolute poverty measures, more than 95 percent of the poor were rural”.

The concentration of poverty in rural areas is a direct consequence of the pre-reform strategy of fuelling industrialisation by squeezing the countryside (Oi, 1989). Before the market reform, urbanites enjoyed secure employment and a wide range of benefits and services that were provided through their work units (danwei). Although meagre by Western standards, income and consumption were far higher in Chinese cities than in the countryside.
This created a strong incentive for peasants to move to the cities. To restrict rural–urban migration, a system of household registration (hukou) was introduced in the 1950s which has for decades “effectively bound peasants to the soil” (Whyte, 2005: 10). Restriction on migration has gradually been relaxed and there are now over 200 million internal migrants in China (Liang et al., 2014). But hukou still exists as a legal category. Migrant workers living in cities do not have access to health care, education, or other public services that are available to those with urban hukou (Chan and Zhang, 1999). Furthermore, as migrants tend to work in unskilled, low-wage jobs, they are typically found at the bottom of the urban economic hierarchy.

Despite that, the impact of migration on urban poverty seems quite small. Park and Wang (2010) show that in terms of housing conditions and other non-monetary welfare indicators migrants are indeed worse off than non-migrants. Migrants also earn lower hourly wages. But as they tend to work longer hours and have a lower dependency ratio in their household, the gap in disposable income between migrant and non-migrant households is smaller than might be expected. Overall, Park and Wang (2010: 55) conclude that the difference in poverty rate among migrants and non-migrants is very small and that “including migrants has a negligible impact on the overall urban poverty estimates”.

In the countryside, remittances from migrants certainly help raise household income. But Du et al. (2005: 706) point out that “[t]he poorest rural households with few laborers and poor human capital are unable to allow members to migrate”. Thus, “the overall impact of migration on [rural] poverty headcount has been modest”.

Although poverty in China is concentrated in the countryside, urban Chinese have been facing greater poverty risks since the mid-1990s. In particular, state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms had led to 28 million workers (about a quarter of the SOE workforce) being laid off (Appleton et al., 2014). This contributed to the doubling of the urban unemployment rate from 6% to 12% between 1993 and 2000 (Meng and Gregory, 2007).

Other reforms also put economic pressure on city dwellers. In particular, the Chinese state used to subsidise urbanites’ food consumption through a coupon system. The value of the coupons distributed to each household was a function of its size and the age of its members. The coupon system was abolished in 1993 and food price control was lifted. Although urban wages had gone up, giving urbanites greater spending power to cope with food price inflation, larger households with few working members lost out in this reform (Meng and Gregory, 2007). Also, urbanites now need to pay for many public services, for example, education and health care, that were previously free or heavily subsidised.

In response to the growing economic hardship in the cities, the Chinese state piloted a minimum living standard guarantee programme (dibao) in Shanghai in 1993, which was then rolled out across urban China in 1999. In 1999, 2.7 million urbanites were enrolled on dibao, rising to 23.4 million in 2008 (Gustafsson and Deng, 2011). A dibao programme for rural China was launched later and became nationwide in 2007. By 2012, it covered 53 million people, about 8% of the rural population (Li and Sicular, 2014).

As with many social programmes in China, the implementation of dibao is very decentralised. Municipal and provincial authorities have a lot of leeway in setting the dibao line, determining the eligibility criteria, and so on (Ravallion, 2014). The World Bank (2009: 123–124) reports that in 2004 the income threshold for rural dibao ranges between 120 yuan and 1560 yuan per person per year. In any case, due to the restricted coverage of the dibao programmes, their impact on poverty reduction is limited (Chen et al., 2006; Li and Sicular, 2014). Overall, a good deal is known about absolute poverty in China. But, as I will show below, relative poverty is a different story altogether.

Summary and discussion​

China has made some truly significant progress in tackling absolute poverty. But relative poverty is a different story altogether. Compared to Germany, the UK, and the US, not only is relative poverty more common in China, it is also deeper and more severe. Furthermore, while absolute poverty in China is “predominantly a rural phenomenon”, relative poverty afflicts Chinese cities as much as it does the countryside.

By international standards, a very large share of China's relative poverty is transient in nature. (Transient poverty is also important in the UK. A point that I will return to later.) Direct measures of poverty entry and exit rates also suggest greater instability of people's economic fortune in China. Compared to their Western counterparts, the average Chinese faces significantly higher risks of falling into relative poverty. But the relatively poor in China are also more likely to escape poverty than the poor in Germany or the US.
The combination of high poverty entry rate and high poverty exit rate means that there are more occasional poverty and more recurrent poverty in China than in the West. Indeed, while a minority of people in Germany, the UK and the US were touched by relative poverty over three waves (four years), being poor was actually the experience of a small majority of Chinese.

Relative poverty in China is distinctive in many ways. But we should not regard China as sui generis, as the covariates predicting poverty status are very similar across the four countries. For example, higher educational qualifications, employment, and having more earners in the household all protect against poverty in the four countries. But collectively these covariates are much less predictive of poverty status in China than in Germany, the UK and the US.

The findings of this paper also speak to our understanding of poverty dynamics in general. Duncan et al. (1993) posit that countries with more poverty tend to have higher poverty entry rates, and that is because the non-poor in those countries tend to be closer to the poverty line. We do observe higher poverty entry rates in countries with more poverty. But the non-poor of those countries (e.g., China and the US) are actually further away from the poverty line than their counterparts in countries with less poverty (e.g., Germany and the UK).

Furthermore, Duncan et al. (1993) argue that poverty exit rates would be lower in countries with more poverty, as the typical poor person in those countries would be further below the poverty line. Once again, this is only partly true. The median poor person in China or the US are indeed further away from the poverty lines than the median poor person in Germany or the UK. But poverty exit rates are much higher in China or the UK than in Germany or the US.

Some revisions to Duncan et al. (1993) are therefore necessary. Mechanically speaking, it is a large income change that pushes people into poverty or plucks them out of it. What counts as a large income change depends partly on how far someone is from the poverty threshold. This is why the claims of Duncan et al. (1993) are eminently reasonable. But our findings show that this is not the whole story. Other social forces operating in the labour market, in households and in the broader policy environment also make large income changes more likely to occur in some countries than in others.

For example, using the same data sets, Chan et al. (2019) show that not only is permanent income more unequally distributed in China than in the West, but there is greater instability in transitory income in China too. They decompose the total variance of log-income in the panel data into its between and within components, and report that “in Germany, the UK, and the US the lion's share of income inequality is found between individuals rather than within individuals. But the opposite is true for China, suggesting that the average Chinese face a much higher degree of income instability and uncertainty” (Chan et al., 2019: 443). Moreover, while there is regression to the mean in income in all four countries, “the magnitude of income change is always larger in China than in the three Western countries” (Chan et al., 2019: 439). They then argue that broader changes in the labour market and employment practices in China have created a large pool of casually employed workers which, in turn, explains the heightened income instability in China (Gallagher, 2005; Kuruvilla et al., 2011).

Finally, the implications of the findings of this paper go beyond China. In comparative research on welfare capitalism, the UK and the US are often grouped together as exemplars of the liberal regime. Similarly, Atkinson (2015: 20) notes that, so far as inequality is concerned, “the situation in the UK is a pale imitation of what is happening in the US, and that the UK chart can be obtained by simply replacing ‘S’ by ‘K’ in the heading. There is some truth in this. But the poverty dynamics of the two countries is actually quite different. In particular, rates of poverty exit are much higher in the UK than in the US (see also Office for National Statistics, 2015; Vaalavuo, 2015; Valletta, 2006). This means that there is much less chronic poverty in the UK. This is a particularly intriguing outcome as many of the anti-poverty policies brought in by the New Labour government (1997–2010), for example, tax credits, were “strongly influenced by evidence from US welfare-to-work experiments and, again, had many elements common with them” (Waldfogel, 2010: 5). Further work on how the social structure and/or anti-poverty programmes of the UK and US had led to such different poverty dynamics would be very illuminating.

 

[T.C.]

First off, @Novelis, if your opening salvo in a debate is to attack the sentence structures of the person you want to disagree with, then that should make you stop and think about where you’re coming from and why. You’ve been around long enough to have grasped the basic concepts of The Work.

I am prepared for the case to be the latter and for my mind to be changed (difficult though that may be), so please let me know where you’re getting all this.

Are you? Are you sure you’re prepared for it to be the case? I have no emotional interest whatsoever in the political relationship between Taiwan and China, so bear that in mind when I say that if you want to, like actually want to explore alternative ideas about the situation, then those ideas are out there, and easy enough to find.

You could do worse than to start with the coverage provided by the YouTube channel, “The New Atlas”. Brian Berletic over there has been analysing the Taiwan situation for years.

 

[Pierre]

Striking difference in media treatment between anti-lock-down movement in the West vs. China:

 

[Ben]

A little input from my wife, a Westerner who has lived in China and travelled to several places there. She is not surprised in any way by the initial response to COVID, mainly due to the size and density of the population. She is very surprised by the protests, even considering the current circumstances.

Nobody really seems to be any closer to understanding the mystery of the ongoing restrictions. I agree that it's reasonable to think that the government knows the original virus does not warrant this level of restriction (and that it is unlikely, or too late, to stop transmission anyway). The economic cost of the restrictions is high, some people are also pushing back now, so the government must be highly motivated for some reason. Is it just for control? I'm open to the idea that they are concerned about something more serious, it's just difficult to see any evidence for that so far.

 

[Adobe]

The largest quarantine camp in China's Guangzhou city is being built. It has 90,000 isolation pods.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1596967307678318594

 

[Zzartemis]

Tiananmen Square

 

[Adobe]

In an effort to better understand what is happening in China. Here is a perspective from Alt-Markets. The article has videos, and further discussion. Here are a few excerpts. (Bolding mine)

By Brandon Smith of Alt-Markets

It’s A Beta Test For The New World Order​

This is a reality I have been writing about for many years: China does NOT stand in opposition to global centralization under the control of western oligarchs. All they want is a prominent seat at the table when the “Great Reset” kicks off and total centralization begins. But the above information only suggests an economic relationship between China and the globalists. Does the alliance go even further than that?

All of these events and conditions are often treated as disconnected or coincidentally associated. No one is asking the right questions. The big question being WHY? Why is the Chinese government sabotaging its own economy with lockdowns and oppressing the population to the point of open revolt (a rarity among the normally subservient Chinese people). Why keep the lockdowns going when it is clear to the rest of the world that the pandemic is over and that the lockdowns and masks never worked to begin with?

I would ask CCP officials a simple question that many of us in America also asked our own government a over a year ago: If the vaccines work, why enforce mandates and lockdowns? If it’s because the vaccines don’t work, then why try to force the population to take the jab? Beyond that, if the masks and lockdowns work, then why is China facing yet another supposed covid infection wave?

Obviously the CCP does not care about the well being of the average Chinese citizen. There is no logic to anything they are doing, just as there was no logic to anything Biden, Fauci and the CDC were doing in the US. The difference is, Americans were able to force the globalists in the US to abandon their mandate agenda, likely because we are heavily armed and they realized too many of us were non-compliant. In China, there is no civilian militia equivalent.

If you want to know the real globalist vision for the future, take a look at China today and then multiply the pain and suffering another hundred fold. China is a beta test.

The problem for the establishment is that if there are visible examples of freedom despite covid, then other nations will start to question the necessity of their own lockdowns. Even the Chinese people are starting to fight back. They can’t implement their NWO one country at a time, they will have to oppress many countries at once.

Why China Sucks: It's A Beta Test For The New World Order - Alt-Market.us

By Brandon Smith For over a decade there has been an open globalist obsession with the Chinese governmental model –...

alt-market.us

 

[christx11]

In an effort to better understand what is happening in China. Here is a perspective from Alt-Markets. The article has videos, and further discussion. Here are a few excerpts. (Bolding mine)

By Brandon Smith of Alt-Markets

It’s A Beta Test For The New World Order​

This is a reality I have been writing about for many years: China does NOT stand in opposition to global centralization under the control of western oligarchs. All they want is a prominent seat at the table when the “Great Reset” kicks off and total centralization begins. But the above information only suggests an economic relationship between China and the globalists. Does the alliance go even further than that?

All of these events and conditions are often treated as disconnected or coincidentally associated. No one is asking the right questions. The big question being WHY? Why is the Chinese government sabotaging its own economy with lockdowns and oppressing the population to the point of open revolt (a rarity among the normally subservient Chinese people). Why keep the lockdowns going when it is clear to the rest of the world that the pandemic is over and that the lockdowns and masks never worked to begin with?

I would ask CCP officials a simple question that many of us in America also asked our own government a over a year ago: If the vaccines work, why enforce mandates and lockdowns? If it’s because the vaccines don’t work, then why try to force the population to take the jab? Beyond that, if the masks and lockdowns work, then why is China facing yet another supposed covid infection wave?

Obviously the CCP does not care about the well being of the average Chinese citizen. There is no logic to anything they are doing, just as there was no logic to anything Biden, Fauci and the CDC were doing in the US. The difference is, Americans were able to force the globalists in the US to abandon their mandate agenda, likely because we are heavily armed and they realized too many of us were non-compliant. In China, there is no civilian militia equivalent.

If you want to know the real globalist vision for the future, take a look at China today and then multiply the pain and suffering another hundred fold. China is a beta test.

The problem for the establishment is that if there are visible examples of freedom despite covid, then other nations will start to question the necessity of their own lockdowns. Even the Chinese people are starting to fight back. They can’t implement their NWO one country at a time, they will have to oppress many countries at once.

Why China Sucks: It's A Beta Test For The New World Order - Alt-Market.us

By Brandon Smith For over a decade there has been an open globalist obsession with the Chinese governmental model –...

alt-market.us

It always amazes me how unimaginative many so called analyses are. Perhaps China's scientific intel community knows that Covid originated in a lab in Maryland around 2017-2018. Perhaps China's scientific intel community knows the original Covid had a genetic payload and was designed to modify human genetics. Perhaps they are wary that any new strain could actually be a new creation by the same forces and not a mutation of the existing Covid.

 

[Ryan]

 

[axj]

If i'm understanding the above correctly, the difference to me is that what China's leadership is doing is actually benefiting its people

I think that China already has much of the totalitarian digital control system in place that the Western pathocrats want to copy. Protesting in China is becoming increasingly dangerous and difficult, because the protesters can be identified and face all kinds of restrictions as a result. There is the social credit system, as well as the digital covid passes that are used to restrict freedom of movement.

I think that China's only positive role is in creating a multipolar world geopolitically, as well as supporting Russia. In many other respects, especially domestically, the CCP is no better than the Western pathocrats. Though China did not poison its population with mRNA shots, so that is another positive thing.

 

[Zzartemis]

**Why is Apple limiting Chinese protesters’ use of AirDrop?**

*The Silicon Valley behemoth limited its signature feature earlier this month.*
November 29, 2022 by Wilfred Chan

SNIP:
As mass protests against Xi Jinping’s hard-line “zero Covid” restrictions spread in China, demonstrators have had to contend with social media censorship, location tracking, and facial recognition from the world’s largest state-backed techno-surveillance apparatus.

But not every barrier can be traced solely to the Chinese government: On at least one front, Silicon Valley is involved, too.
Earlier this month, Apple quietly added restrictions to its AirDrop feature for users in China, preventing customers from leaving their devices open to receiving files from passersby. In effect, the tech giant has eliminated Chinese activists’ ability to reach strangers using the widely available peer-to-peer communication tool.

AirDrop allows users to semi-anonymously send files directly using Bluetooth to other Apple users nearby, as long as recipients have their devices set to be discoverable by “everyone.”

READ ALL

https://www.fastcompany.com/90817341/why-is-apple-limiting-chinese-protesters-use-of-airdrop

In 2017, at the behest of Chinese cybersecurity regulators, Apple agreed to transfer control of Chinese users’ iCloud data to a Chinese state-owned company. Apple has also removed apps from its Chinese App Store at the request of Chinese authorities, including foreign news apps and apps supporting the Hong Kong protests.

FROM ARTICLE

Apple accused of giving Chinese government control over local data | Engadget

Apple has allegedly handed control of CHinese customer data to a state-owned company in China, according to a new report detailing its cybersecurity failures and compliance with local censors..

www.engadget.com

 

[iamthatis]

I thought this was a good piece giving pretty broad view of China's somewhat fragile position in relation to the USA, with implications for foreign policy.

The Daily Beast Shared Some Surprisingly Accurate Assessments Of Chinese Interests - TheAltWorld

China’s grand strategic vulnerabilities are more acute nowadays than they’ve been at any time in the past half-century since its first rapprochement with the US.

thealtworld.com

The Daily Beast Shared Some Surprisingly Accurate Assessments Of Chinese Interests​

China’s grand strategic vulnerabilities are more acute nowadays than they’ve been at any time in the past half-century since its first rapprochement with the US. The Daily Beast’s article shared some surprisingly accurate assessments about this even if its headline is melodramatic clickbait. For as “politically inconvenient” as Andrew Small’s observations might seem to China’s supporters, they nevertheless explain why it’s exploring a New Détente with the US right now.

The Daily Beast is infamous for its pro-Western spin, but just like every outlet, once in a while it gets something right. Such is the case with Andrew Small’s article on Sunday about how “China Is Starting To Really Regret Its Friendship With Russia”. To be absolutely clear, the headline is melodramatic clickbait that doesn’t accurately describe the state of their strategic partnership nor provide reliable insight into its future, but some of the assessments of Chinese interests shared therein are arguably spot-on.

Take for instance Small’s observation that “The problem Beijing faced in 2022 was that in crucial areas, it was still too soon to make a break with the West.” He elaborated that “China was barely any closer to constructing a resilient alternative financial architecture than it had been in 2014. The technology story was equally problematic: despite the massive push to build its own semiconductor industry, Chinese firms were still painfully reliant on U.S. intellectual property.”

The significance of both observations is that “This left many of its companies exposed if they continued to do business in Russia, much like any other sanctioned entity”, which helps explain why China tacitly complies with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions. As Small concluded, “The net effect was that from banks to telecoms, most of the companies that might have wished to take advantage of the newly opened vacuum in the Russian market instead faced even greater limitations on their activities.”

Another important point that he shared in his piece was that “The sanctions put in place by the United States, Europe, Japan, and a healthy array of other states in Asia were not the thin gruel of 2014 but far more potent in their effect—and disturbingly replicable for China too.” That Damocles’ sword hangs over the Chinese leadership’s head and greatly influences their country’s response to the Ukrainian Conflict. Even if they wanted to help Russia, their hands are practically tied.

Small correctly assessed that China is seriously concerned that Russian-like maximum sanctions could similarly be imposed upon it in the event that Beijing one day militarily defends the integrity of its national security red lines in Taiwan just like Moscow did in Ukraine. Furthermore, it’s difficult to argue with him when he writes that the West’s military support for Ukraine must have left a deep impression on China with respect to it expecting them extending similar support to Taiwan in a future conflict.

The combined economic and military uncertainty surrounding the so-called “Taiwan Question” against the shadow of the Ukrainian Conflict over the past nine months predictably contributed to Westerners seriously considering “decoupling” from China in order to preemptively safeguard their interests. Small concluded by writing that “Re-shoring, near-shoring, friend-shoring, diversification, and a host of other phrases had moved from the fringes to the mainstream and into firms’ operational planning.”

All told, his piece presented a surprisingly accurate assessment of Chinese interests at this point in the New Cold War between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South after nine months of the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine. The takeaway is that China’s grand strategic vulnerabilities brought about by the global systemic disruptions connected to that conflict caught its leadership completely off guard, hence why they’re now scrambling to recalibrate their long-term plans.

This doesn’t mean that they “really regret their friendship with Russia” like Small ridiculously claimed in his headline since it accelerates mutually beneficial multipolar processes, but just that the newfound circumstances in which China unexpectedly found itself are forcing difficult policy choices. Its superpower trajectory was arguably derailed as a result of the Ukrainian Conflict, hence why Kissinger’s prediction about an incipient Chinese-US rapprochement appears to be bearing fruit.

This explains why China took the first step in thawing ties with its rival after the G20 since its new National Congress still requires time to recalibrate their country’s grand strategy, ergo the need to explore the parameters of a New Détente with the US. To that end, both parties are discussing the potential for a series of mutual compromises aimed at sustainably de-escalating tensions as part of their envisaged balanced of interests for responsibly managing this stage of their New Cold War competition.

That outcome is being pursued precisely at this point in time because China isn’t in as confident or strong of a position as it was nine months ago contrary to what its supporters claim. Likewise, that outcome hasn’t yet been achieved since China also isn’t as vulnerable and weak as its opponents claim either, hence why it won’t unilaterally concede on its objective interests in exchange for pressure relief. It’ll remain to be seen what happens, but Blinken’s trip early next year will provide further clarity.

Until then, all that’s known for sure is that China’s grand strategic vulnerabilities are more acute nowadays than they’ve been at any time in the past half-century since its first rapprochement with the US. The Daily Beast’s article shared some surprisingly accurate assessments about this even if its headline is melodramatic clickbait. For as “politically inconvenient” as Small’s observations might seem to China’s supporters, they nevertheless explain why it’s exploring a New Détente with the US right now.

 

[iamthatis]

I think that China already has much of the totalitarian digital control system in place that the Western pathocrats want to copy. Protesting in China is becoming increasingly dangerous and difficult, because the protesters can be identified and face all kinds of restrictions as a result. There is the social credit system, as well as the digital covid passes that are used to restrict freedom of movement.

I think that China's only positive role is in creating a multipolar world geopolitically, as well as supporting Russia. In many other respects, especially domestically, the CCP is no better than the Western pathocrats. Though China did not poison its population with mRNA shots, so that is another positive thing.

Can you provide some evidence of the Chinese social credit system? All of what I've seen is that it's mostly fake news coming from the West designed to smear China.

 

[axj]

Can you provide some evidence of the Chinese social credit system? All of what I've seen is that it's mostly fake news coming from the West designed to smear China.

There is indeed misinformation about it and it is also still in development to a large degree.

Keep in mind that about half of all surveillance cameras in the world are in China, which indicates a large desire by the CCP to have an extensive digital control system in place.

Needless to say, just because the CCP and Western pathocrats seem to be opposed to each other in some areas, it does not mean that one side is better than the other.

 

[Ryan]

Here is an excellent podcast by Brian Berletic of "The New Atlas", interviewing historian Carl Zha about the protests within China, China-US tensions and the historical context of China's "Century of Humiliation" (~1839-1949).

Key points are:

* Yes, there are occasionally genuine protests within China as a result of disagreements with the government's policy. These tend to die out fairly quickly because, even if the Chinese government has less tolerance for sustained protests, they also tend to make actual policy changes as a result of such, much more so than in the west. Western governments have a higher tolerance for sustained protests, but mostly as a form of virtue-signalling to the world, not because they consider protests something that should inform a government's policymaking.

* China is very aware of US color revolution tactics and uses censorship and suppression as one way of limiting such influences.

* Memory of the "Century of Humiliation" still very strong in China, and is a significant motivator for Chinese nationalism.

* That period of history started with the first British Opium War. 40% adult Chinese population became addicted, led to societal collapse. Resulted in the ceding of Hong Kong to the British for over a hundred years, establishment of five "Treaty Ports" with foreign concessions where the Chinese laws did not apply. US merchants also involved - approximately 15% share of the opium smuggling market. Big names like Forbes, FDR's family were involved, Ivy league universities benefited from this.

* Second Opium War, invasion of Beijing, the British burned down the Emperor's summer palace, looted a lot of Chinese treasures which went to British museums. More treaty ports opened - river ports, not just coastal cities. British imported Indian police, French imported Vietnamese, to police these areas.

* Segregation - Chinese weren't allowed in some areas; European-only parks etc.

* 1884 - Sino-French war. Extension of French colonisation of Vietnam. More concessions to the French, French occupied Taiwan. French naval forces were far superior to the Chinese. US naval commander at the time visited Taiwan and advised the US govt should seize Taiwan and make it a US protectorate. Led to US "Open Door Policy", which seemed humanitarian but was really just to ensure the US got a seat at the table with the other imperial nations.

* Westernisation of Japan, Korea, China led to 1894 Sino-Japanese war. China's defeat was a shock to the Chinese elite. Philosophy of "prosperous nation" was born from this with an aim for nation-building and reclaiming sovereignty.

* Religious missionaries were common and often worked with opium dealers due to their knowledge of languages; the missionaries were granted privileges by the occupying governments, but were intensely disliked by the local Chinese. The religious proselytisation was a primary catalyst for the Boxer rebellion of 1899-1901.

* The Qing imperial government tried to use this sentiment as part of a wider push to drive out the foreign invaders, but this was a bad strategy that resulted in the "8 Nation Alliance" invasion of Beijing: Britain, France, United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary. Led to occupation of the city and widespread destruction and looting of the city. An entire tomb of a Ming dynasty general was relocated to Ottawa, Canada!

* Many Chinese youth went to Japan to study at the beginning of the 20th century, as Japan was seen as a successfully "modernised" eastern nation, and brought back anti-monarchic, republican ideals which ultimately led to the 1911 overthrow of the Chinese imperial government and end of the Qing dynasty.

* Unfortunately, the old central government was not replaced by a new, stronger power structure, and China fractured into multiple regions run by local warlords/governors backed by different foreign powers, for approximately a decade, until they were coaxed into supporting the Allies in WW1 by the United States, with the promise that they could reclaim Chingdao from the German colonists.

* China did not want to get directly involved in the war, but agreed to supply labour for Europe, to staff factories etc, to make up the shortfall of local men who had been drafted for military service on the front lines. Up to ~250,000 Chinese men were sent, some of whom also ended up on the front lines doing dangerous work as adjunct labour for the military. Then, after the war, when the treaty of Versailles was signed, the US reneged on their deal with China and gave the German Chingdao colony to Japan. This caused a huge outcry and surge of nationalist support within China, especially among the youth.

* This led to a disillusionment with the western model of "progress" and turned many of the Chinese elite and youth towards studying Marxism and a closer relationship with the new Russian communist regime in the search for an alternative model, eventually resulting in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party and it's rise to power through an alliance with Russia and Sun Yat-Sen's Republic of China (led by the Kuomintang). Russia provided weapons and military support for the KMT on the condition that the KMT cooperate with the CCP, many members of which obtained prominent positions within the KMT.

* US Naval presence in China was from as early pre-1850, mostly protecting US opium trade interests. After WW1, Chingdao became headquarters of the US Navy 7th fleet. As the relationship between the KMT and CCP turned into a power struggle and eventually outright civil war, the US began covertly supporting the KMT during the Chinese civil war so as to preserve their naval presence in Chingdao and oppose the growing Communist influence. Over 60,000 US marines in Operation Beleaguer provided weapons and logistical support to the KMT under the cover of post-WWII humanitarian aid repatriating Japanese soldiers and civilians.

* Eventually, the Republic of China/KMT were exiled to Taiwan as the CCP took full control of mainland China. Former US 7th fleet commander Charles Cook went to Taiwan as military advisor for the KMT, and there was apparently a split between the US State Department and Pentagon over whether to invest further effort in China or wash their hands of the region. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the Pentagon's point of view won out in policymaking circles.

* US President Truman sent the US 7th fleet to the Taiwan strait, which effectively prevented the People's Liberation Army from taking Taiwan, as the PLA had no naval presence to speak of, while the US had an entire aircraft carrier group. This is only reason why the ROC/KMT managed to survive as a political entity.

* The KMT were then provided with US military aid starting in the 1950s, facilitated by a CIA front corporation called the "Western Corporation". The CIA then set up a front airline called "Civil Air Transport" which was used for CIA operations throughout the region, including dropping troops and supplies into northern Myanmar in support of drug cartels that eventually created the infamous "Golden Triangle". This was possibly done as a counter to Mao's efforts to stamp out the opium trade within China, which was still providing illicit cashflows to western nations.

* The "Golden Triangle" at one stage provided up to 90% of the world's heroin supply - prior to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which then became the lead producer.

* With US support, the KMT were able to maintain naval and air superiority around Taiwan and the mainland coastline, until the Russians provided the PLA extra radar and airforce capability which prevented the KMT from being able to conduct offensive operations on the Chinese mainland. Even so, the KMT maintained naval superiority to the point that they were able to blockade mainland Chinese ports and intercept shipping. China wasn't able to enforce "freedom of navigation" in the Taiwan strait until 1974!

* With the conclusion of the Korean War in 1954, China was able to turn its full attention to the KMT, which had been acting as a US proxy force, even staging small raids on mainland China. It seized several small islands which had been used as staging grounds for the raids, and the situation escalated into the first Taiwan strait crisis, which was resolved

* In 1958, with the advent of the second Taiwan straits crisis, the US deployed nuclear weapons and over 30,000 troops to Taiwan, with plans to potentially strike mainland China as a deterrent to the PLA. However, fears of a retaliatory strike by the Soviets caused cooler heads to prevail.

* The Cold War stance was maintained until 1974, when Nixon visited China and signed the Shanghai Communiqué, which became the basis for what is known as the "One China" policy and subsequent Sino-American relations. As a result of this, the US withdrew their nuclear and conventional military forces and support for the ROC/KMT resumed on a diplomatic/'informal' basis.

* In recent years, the US has begun escalating its provocations against China as part of its "Pivot to Asia" and "China containment" strategies. China remembers how the US double-crossed them during the "Century of Humiliation", and are fully conscious that the US intends to do so again, using Taiwan as a proxy. Even so, they are using every means possible to achieve reunification peacefully.

* The recent shift in the US attitude to China is a reaction to the growing sophistication and competitiveness of Chinese technology that threatens US corporate primacy in the economic sphere. The US is quite happy to have China as a source of cheap labour and goods with no technological parity, but the development of the Chinese high-tech sector has levelled the playing field. Thus, the US is scrambling to relocate any remaining unique manufacturing capability it has in order to attempt to preserve its market influence.

* Bans on Huawei and TikTok demonstrate that US rhetoric about the "free market" is only for when they feel they have the dominant position in the market. Loss of status for their corporations generates pronouncements about how Chinese companies are "national security threats".

* US military planners see a limited window of opportunity to leverage their force superiority and mainstream media propaganda machine before China surpasses them, thus US rhetoric is becoming more and more bellicose and their actions more and more provocative, especially in regards to Taiwan. Nancy Pelosi's visit was a good recent example.

* Successive Taiwanese governments have been relying on an anti-China, pro-independence position to maintain power, but the recent elections have shown that strategy is beginning to fail. The increasingly hardline stance is causing the economic ties with mainland China to begin to fray, and that market represents 40% of Taiwan's overall economic activity. Natural economic activity on the island lends itself to political reintegration with the mainland.

* Other Asian regions rushing to do business with China; Indonesia soon to have first high-speed rail network built by China. Taiwan's historical and cultural ties with China place them in a position of massive opportunity if they can find the political will.

* China doesn't need to take Taiwan by force; they've waited 70 years, and every year China's economy grows, military and technological capabilities increase, international integration and prominence grows, so regardless of short-term domestic Taiwanese political perspectives, the vector sum of all these factors point the destiny of Taiwan inevitably with China. Time is on China's side.